


The question

by Tonnocal



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, I don't really like Josh/Donna anymore, Josh is about winning, Sam is kind of about respectful engagement, and kind of abrasive now I'm not a teenager, it's just he's her boss, not sorry, sorry - Freeform, whereas 90s Sam beleived in the rights of prostitutes/sex workers to have their own agency of choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 02:51:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8186582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonnocal/pseuds/Tonnocal
Summary: Afterwards, embracing her with his hand resting in the small of her back, Sam had to ask the question.“I always thought, that if you ended up with anyone, it would be…”Donna turned her head to look up at him, “Josh”.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Such A Winter's Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7733947) by [ETraytin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ETraytin/pseuds/ETraytin). 



Afterwards, embracing her with his hand resting in the small of her back, Sam had to ask the question.

“I always thought, that if you ended up with anyone, it would be…”

Donna turned her head to look up at him, “Josh”.

Sam stifled a guilty flinch at the name, “Yeah. I mean, I don’t mean to make assumptions, but you always had this chemistry together.”

Donna laid a kiss against his shoulder. They’d met for drinks, Sam returned from seeing his mother in California and wanting to catch up before coming in to work tomorrow. An ordinary evening. Drinks became dinner, dinner became dessert, and then they’d been a block from his apartments and he’d leaned down and kissed her. Somehow, this had felt right, a connection made where there hadn’t been one before.

Donna rolled on to her back to stare at the ceiling. Sam grunted and moved his arm to circle her shoulders.

“You’re not wrong, I mean, we do have chemistry. And, it’s not like I don’t care about Josh, or even he about me. But, that’s not enough. He’s, well, he’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong, but I’d never come first with him. I’d always be the second thought, except for the grand gestures. Day to day, that’s not enough.”

Sam thought about that for a moment. “You mean he’s focused on... Or,” a thought occurred to him, “wait, Donna, you don’t mean to say he’s anything like…”

“Like Dr. Free-ride. No, not really. Well, except how he is. It works between us where I support him and work towards his goals. As my boss, that’s fine, but that kind of dynamic, it’d kill anything else. So, no, it’s not going to happen. We don’t know how to talk to each other as equals, everything with Josh is an argument, a competition, part of a hierarchy of absolutes.”

“You don’t think he respects you.” Sam said, watching what he could see of Donna’s face.

“As a person, not really, he, it’s so complicated, because he is a good guy, he believe in all of these sweeping notions of equality and freedom, but he still does all of the things that educated white guys do to establish their place at the top of the pecking order. He’s fundamentally comfortable with the status quo, where he wins and is right, and when that gets challenged he becomes combative.” Donna looked sad now, as though in speaking about this it had clarified things in her own mind. “You know, Ginger has had time to finish her doctorate while working a white-house job. Josh won’t approve a second assistant to help me manage his research. I work a sixteen-hour day, in a job I love, but I think I need to do some more to establish myself.” She made a face, “Sam, this is probably giving you the wrong impression, I’m not, well, I don’t compare the two of you, I…is it juvenile to just say ‘I like you’ and leave it a that?”

Sam turned on his side and kissed her, “A little juvenile maybe, but then ‘I like you, too’. He kissed her temple, her brow, and the line of her jaw. He looked her in eye, “And, I asked, so I can hardly call it an affront to my masculinity that you were talking about someone else while naked in my bed”. He grinned and Donna found herself laughing lightly. She combed her fingers through his hair.

“Go to sleep, we’ve both got early mornings.”

“True, but can I tempt you to stay for breakfast? I have cereal and absolutely no milk. Possibly coffee, chances are about fifty-fifty.”

Donna kissed him, and whatever this was, it was perhaps a nice start.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this work is inspired by the Sam and Donna dynamic in Such A Winter's Day by Etraytin, which killed the last vestiges of my Josh/Donna-ness. When I first came to the fandom at 17, this pairing seemed completely natural to me. Of course Josh and Donna would end up together and be completely perfect. (For perspective, at this time I also shipped HG/SS; Daine/Numair; Inuyasha/Kagome; and so much else.)
> 
> Then, at 18, I read the Twilight series. There seemed to be something deeply wrong with Bella and Edward in this book, but aside from the purple prose and stalking, I couldn't really put my finger on it. She didn't have any goals or achievements separate from the ones he set.
> 
> In the years since, I've learnt about how to see power dynamics, equality, the multiple forms of emotional abuse and exploitation, and to recognise the importance of communication and respect in real-person relationships. You don't need to be an evil person to be the 'bad' person in an abusive relationship - It's more complicated than assault between intimate partners. For me, thinking back on it now, Season 8 and ( would have been Josh and Donna getting together, maybe having a child, getting married, and then getting divorced when communication between them broke down completely. I wanted to write something that spoke about that, and had Donna's character recognising some of the dynamics in common between her previous and current relationships. Sam's here because when he speaks and acts, it's with the conviction of his ideals. 
> 
> Also, I think they'd be cute together.


End file.
